Activists: Bills hit transgender youth

Criminal bans proposed against surgeries, sports

SALT LAKE CITY — At the urging of conservative advocacy groups, Republican legislators in more than a dozen states are promoting bills that focus on transgender young people. One batch of bills would bar doctors from providing them with certain gender-related medical treatment; another batch would bar trans students from participating on school sports teams of the gender they identify with.

The proposed laws, if enacted, “would bring devastating harms to the transgender community,” said Chase Strangio, a transgender-rights lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

He warned that the medical bans — now pending in Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota and likely to surface elsewhere — could trigger suicides among young people yearning to undergo gender transition.

The bills’ goals have been endorsed by several national conservative groups, including Alliance Defending Freedom and Eagle Forum.

“We’ve got lots of legislators working on this,” said Gayle Ruzicka, an activist with Eagle Forum’s Utah chapter. “We don’t let this happen to children.”

The bill recently introduced in

South Dakota would make it a felony for medical providers to perform operations or administer hormone therapy to help minors change their gender. The Missouri bill would subject doctors to revocation of their license if they administered gender-reassignment treatment, and parents who consented to such treatment would be reported to child-welfare officials for child abuse.

“I cannot imagine what happens to transgender people if these criminal bans pass,” said the ACLU’s Strangio, a transgender man. “I don’t think we can possibly raise the alarm enough, because people are going to die.”

For transgender kids and their families, though, the idea of putting those steps out of reach is terrifying. Robyn Rumsey, of Roy, Utah, said her child was withdrawn and angry before coming out as transgender at age 12.

In consultation with a counselor and doctors, Dex Rumsey began using puberty blockers and eventually testosterone.

It’s made her son, now 15, into a happy, thriving person, she said. The family is considering surgery later this year.

Rick Bowmer The Associated Press Dex Rumsey, 15, shown here with parents Clay and Robyn on Friday in Roy, Utah, came out as transgender at 12. He’s scared he could become suicidal again if a ban on hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery for minors were to pass.